Patent Literature 1 discloses a pedestrian recognizing device that creates an edge image from image data input from an outside sensor, detects the opening degree W of the side leg portions of a pedestrian candidate and estimates the head portion of the pedestrian candidate, estimates the height H of the pedestrian candidate in accordance with the position of the head portion, and determines whether or not the ratio (W/H) of the leg portion W to the height H is equal to or more than a predetermined value α based on the height H and the opening degree W of the leg portions of the pedestrian candidate, thereby determining whether or not there is a possibility that the pedestrian candidate will walk across the road of a driver's own vehicle.
Note that, as other conventional technology documents, Patent Literatures 2 to 4 are exemplified. Patent Literature 2 discloses a pedestrian rush out predicting device that acquires time series variations of the positions and moving speeds of a pedestrian existing ahead of a driver's own vehicle and periphery information, compares the acquired time series variations of the position and moving speed with the patterns of the time series variations of the position and moving speed at the time the pedestrian rushes out into a roadway, and compares the acquired periphery information with the periphery information at the time the pedestrian rushes out into the roadway, thereby predicting whether or not the pedestrian will rush out into the roadway on which the driver's own vehicle travels. Patent Literature 3 discloses a pedestrian detecting device for a vehicle, wherein the device has database that stores two-dimensional shape data for detecting a pedestrian, estimates a first three-dimensional model based on the picked-up data of the detected pedestrian, and estimates a future motion of the pedestrian based on the first three-dimensional model. Patent Literature 4 discloses a pedestrian recognition supporting device that specifies representative points (a head portion, a neck portion, a hip joint, a knee joint, an ankle joint, and the like) of a pedestrian from image data, calculates the angle information of respective portions of the pedestrian based on the straight lines connecting the specified representative points to each other, a straight line parallel to a ground surface, and the like, thereby determining the moving state of the pedestrian based on the calculated angle information.